


The Wayfarer

by tobequitefrank (orphan_account)



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Grim Reapers, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24090748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/tobequitefrank
Summary: “So, you’re like a grim reaper? In my boyfriend’s body?” Frank was looking at Gerard incredulously.Gerard was aware how stupid it sounded, he had never had to explain it to anyone before, they just alwaysknew. “I dunno, yeah.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I just make sure people pass over properly.”“And what? We just make our way through my greatest hits until we reach some stairway to Hell and I decide if I want to stay or go?”
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	1. Death 𖤐

Gerard didn’t like his job – not that it was hard, in fact, it was quite easy – he just didn’t enjoy it, alright? Sure, he got to meet all kinds of people, learn about their whole life stories, and be their last link between the human and spirit world, but it wasn’t as good as it was talked up to be. You see, Gerard didn’t like people even when he was alive, so it really was a massive inconvenience; no one ever told him how much _talking_ would be involved in being a grim reaper. It wasn’t what he signed up for.  
And not to mention the periods spent in The Other. Time worked differently in The Other, as in that time wasn’t a construct at all. You could spend hours, days, even months, in The Other, guiding souls through their pivotal life moments, only to reach the end of the thread, watch them pass over, and resurface with no time having passed at all. It was disorientating and not to mention confusing - hard to keep track of what was real and what wasn’t. Gerard had lost count of the times he thought he had finished a crossing and could finally enjoy a quiet coffee at the café, only to realise he was being served by the very soul he was transporting.  
“Working a 9 til 5 barista shift is one of your fondest memories?” He’d raise an eyebrow as he took his scolding paper cup in his hands.  
They’d usually explain how they had met their wife or husband or best friend while working this shift, or that their grandma had owned the café, but in the end, Gerard wasn’t one to judge. He did his job, completed his crossings as he was instructed, and tried to relish the moments in between. He just drifted along and was fine with that. He didn’t mean to go fall in love during the process.  
Beginning a crossing at a hospital wasn’t uncommon, quite the opposite actually. Gerard secretly savoured in the crossings that would begin in someone’s home, on the street, even sometimes at someone’s work. Hospitals were so sterile, and silent, and most disturbingly, full of travelling souls.  
This poor kid had been in a car accident and Gerard had been transported here, as his luck would have it, to watch the nurse using the defib, while another tried to will him back to life. “Frank, you hang in there. Frank, look at me.” He really needed to recalibrate his transporter, if he could avoid watching their dying moments it made things a lot easier to deal with. Gerard drifted over, watching as the staff tried to save the boy. He wished he could put them out of their misery, he wouldn’t have been here if he was going to survive, after all. Maybe he could just…Gerard looked up as the incessant beeping, frantic moving and increasing panic had faded from the room. He was left with the boy lying flat on the bed, the new summer morning light leaking through the window. To anyone else, to a _human_ that is, it, of course, would have been strange that the Jersey winter was within an instant replaced with the heat of summer, but along with the construct of proper time, The Other also had no place for conventional seasons.  
The boy groaned and hissed a little when he tried to move his arm, which although no longer broken in The Other, remnants of living conscious sometimes brought real pain through.  
“Fuck, remind me to never go through that again.” He complained, trying to sit up properly. “Who woulda thought getting hit by a bus would have been so painful?”  
“Definitely me.” Gerard stood up to help him. “I don’t think a 5-foot meat sack is meant to go up against that much metal.  
“Fair.” He rubbed up and down his face briefly, on the last swipe moving up to shuffle his hair. “So, can we go now?” The boy was up and out of the bed within an instant, his previously ruined and blood-stained clothes now in perfect condition.  
“Yeah, lead the way, Frankie.” Gerard pushed open the ER door and the pair stepped out into a pumpkin farm during what must have been October.  
Gerard spent all his time in The Other following the thread of memories, answering questions that would sometime arise, and then finally leading the soul to the afterlife. It was different for everyone – some souls had one or two memories they would relive, a first date, an exciting promotion, getting married, you get the idea, before fading on into whatever it was they believed came after. Sometimes there were no memories at all, just a straight transport and Gerard quickly caught on that in those situations he usually ended up wading across the Styx. He thanked his lucky stars that he wasn’t subjected to whatever horrors those soul deemed as their fundamental moments. Most often than not though, it was more a continual corridor of memories, weaving in and out of different points in their lives until they were able enough to move on. This was why Gerard could sometimes spend months in The Other. Humans were scared of what would come next, and faced with the decision between the unknown or reliving their favourite memories until they were at the very end of the thread, it was often hard to choose.  
“Come on, I know where they hide all the good ones.” Frank beamed, pulling Gerard along with him, down the endless rows of pumpkins after pumpkins. “Look, I already carved this one this morning, do you want to do one?”  
Gerard looked around briefly, but there wasn’t anyone else Frank could be talking to. “What, me?” He asked, pointing to himself.  
“Well, yeah.” Frank huffed, putting the pumpkin down on the bench. They were now inside a kitchen. “But we have to do it outside, ‘cause you know, the mess; mum will kill me.”  
Gerard didn’t want to take this memory away from Frank, but it wasn’t typical for him to be stepping in and living the memory with the soul as well. He guessed perhaps Frank was repressing whoever it was he was actually sharing this memory with, or that his subconscious was fighting against The Other. It was known to happen before.  
“Yeah, sounds like fun.” Gerard hadn’t carved a pumpkin in, like, forever. Regardless though, his artistic skills were still just as great, and Frank even commented on how awesome his pumpkin looked, saying he was going to put it on the front step so that it was the first one everyone saw. Gerard couldn’t stop the blush creeping onto his cheeks, it was a sweet thing to hear, he had missed sincere human contact, even if it wasn’t actually directed at him.  
Gerard followed Frank to the front, where he bent down to place Gerard’s newly carved pumpkin. He stood back, admiring it, and when Gerard turned his gaze from Frank’s face to where the pumpkin was, he was no longer looking at Frank’s parents’ front doorstep, but an open field and a stick of fireworks Frank had just bent down to light.  
“Quick, don’t want that pretty face of yours getting damaged.” Frank joked, again taking Gerard’s hand and pulling him back so that they were out of harms way.  
They were huddled behind a busted up Chevelle and Frank had his hand covering his ears with a huge smile plastered on his face waiting for the night sky to be dancing with colours. Gerard almost couldn’t look away from Frank to watch the fireworks explode. In his personal opinion, Frank was much prettier than the fireworks anyway, it was a such a shame what happened to him.  
“This is one of the best nights of my life.” Frank said sincerely. “Might even beat the time I got my first tattoo.”  
Gerard wondered if that was the next memory they would be walking into as someone called out Frank’s name.  
“Frankie? Frankie, you better not be playing with those damned fireworks again!”  
Frank was laughing and Gerard couldn’t help but laugh along too, it was Frank’s mother calling out from the kitchen window which was now only a couple of feet behind them.  
“Shh, she’ll hear you!” Frank couldn’t mask his laughter either though. “Come on, quick!” Gerard hauled himself up after Frank, who was running through the trees which then turned into an alleyway still in the middle of the night. “Hurry!” Frank was pulling Gerard by the wrist. “They’ll fucking catch you.” He was laughing as they raced down the alley, but there was still an urgency in his voice.  
“Frank? What’s on your hands, it’s all over me.” Gerard didn’t notice the sticky feeling of Frank’s fingers until he asked. Great, now he was acting as some sort of conduit for Frank’s memories.  
“I know, like two eggs cracked in my hands before I could even get one on his car. Did you get any?”  
“Yeah, like half the pack before they called the police.”  
Frank stopped in front of a window, pushing the pane up as fast as he could before climbing through. His hand shot back out, to grab Gerard’s, helping pull him through before they were both safely inside the room. “Shh. You’ll wake my parents, fuckhead.” One of Frank’s clean fingers pressed against Gerard’s lips to hush him.  
Gerard wasn’t aware that he was making any noise, but hushed anyway, the silence that followed only filled with the shallow breathing from both young boys as they caught their breath. Gerard could feel his falling onto Frank’s finger before realising he had been staring for too long. He cleared his throat. He had been witness to some strange memories in his time, but running from the police for egging someone’s car, carving pumpkins and lighting fireworks, it all seemed a bit lacklustre if anyone was to ask him.  
“Um, hey, so…” Frank mumbled a little, finger dropping from Gerard’s lips to hook under his chin.  
Gerard was so curious to know who Frank saw when he was looking back, would he still see Gerard but due to the fact that The Other ran on anything but sense or logic, it wouldn’t have registered as strange to Frank? Or was Frank seeing Gerard as someone else?  
“Hey…” Frank brought him back out of his thoughts.  
“Mmm?”  
“Hey?”  
Gerard opened his eyes, finding himself laying on his back in the snow with Frank next to him.  
“We should go inside, we’re gonna get sick.” Frank was making snow angels as he spoke.  
In a way, it was charming to Gerard that Frank’s most cherished memories were so mundane, although he was feeling increasingly guilty that he was in someone else’s place. Whoever Frank was imagining, Gerard knew was very lucky.  
“When I die-” Gerard quickly sat up. “What?” Frank laughed at Gerard’s sudden reaction. “Relax, I was just gonna say, _when_ I die, I hope this is one of the memories I get to relive.”  
No, no, no. Gerard could feel himself panicking. While The Other was meant to feel like you were actually reliving your favourite memories, all the souls, every single one, could tell the difference between real life and the memory. It was how The After was sure that humans wouldn’t choose to stay in The Other forever, they knew it wasn’t _real_ , that it was just a pathway to the afterlife.  
“Don’t worry. I’m not planning on dying any time soon.” Frank joked, picking up a handful of snow and throwing it at Gerard’s chest.  
_Frank didn’t know he was dead._


	2. The writer †

“So, you’re like a grim reaper? In my boyfriend’s body?” Frank was looking at Gerard incredulously.  
Gerard was aware how stupid it sounded, he had never had to explain it to anyone before, they just always _knew_. “I dunno, yeah.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I just make sure people pass over properly.”  
“And what? We just make our way through my greatest hits until we reach some stairway to Hell and I decide if I want to stay or go?”  
“Pretty much. Although, you’re not going to Hell. I know that much.”  
“Well, can we skip the hits and go straight to the end? No offence but if you’re not really him then I don’t see the point in doing all this.”  
“I don’t understand it either, I should basically just be a spectator, I don’t know why you’re seeing me as him, but no, that’s not how it works. You have to make your way through the thread of memories until we reach the end.” He didn’t think it sounded like the worst deal in the world to someone who had just found out they were dead.  
“Then take me to the next one.” Frank almost demanded.  
“You’ve gotta find the latch to it.” Gerard sighed, he liked it much better when the soul intuitively knew what they were doing. “Could be anything.”  
“Great.” Frank retorted sarcastically. “What about this?” He had already picked up more snow and had pelted it at Gerard’s face.  
Gerard stood there dumbfounded for a brief moment before picking up his own handful and throwing it back at Frank. “You know, for a dead guy, you’re an asshole.”  
“Hey, I didn’t choose to be dead.” Frank threw another, sprinting to the side to dodge Gerard’s next attempt. “The asshole part though, yeah, I guess.”  
Gerard resumed his battle stance, pelting two handfuls of snow directly into Frank’s face, the snow sticking to his eyelashes and hair. While Frank tried to wipe the snow out of his vision and sidestep at the same time, he managed to trip over his own feet and fall face-first into the snow. Gerard couldn’t contain his laugher, bent over himself and holding this stomach. He waited a moment for Frank to get back up and when he didn’t, walked over to help him.  
“Frank, hey, you alright?” He was still laughing. “Frank? Frankie?” When Gerard crouched down to turn Frank over, they were in a hospital waiting room, Frank’s head resting on his shoulder with what could have only been a broken wrist.  
“You’d really say sitting in the ER with a broken wrist if one of your greatest memories?” Gerard subtly moved Frank’s head off.  
He looked exhausted, and Gerard followed his gaze to where his mother was talking to the emergency nurse and answering questions.  
“Oh, uh, I think –ah, you asked me to be your boyfriend.”  
“What?” Gerard wasn’t sure if he had heard it right.  
“ _He_ asked me to be his boyfriend here.” Frank clenched his jaw like he was a bit embarrassed. “I was so doped up on pain meds that I tried to kiss you right in front of my mum. She didn’t—no one knew, and I was so fucking embarrassed that when she left the room to get something to eat, I just started crying.”  
Gerard sat and listened, remembering how scary it was when he had come out to his parents.  
“So, you asked me to be your boyfriend, in the hospital bed. Said that if it was out in the open now you didn’t want anyone else to steal me away.” Frank smiled fondly at the memory.  
He didn’t really know what to do, if Frank didn’t make his way through his memories then he could end up stuck in The Other forever. _Gerard_ could be stuck in The Other forever. He honestly wasn’t sure; he had never not completed a passing before. “Well, you wanna be my boyfriend, or what?”  
“What?” Frank looked mortified.  
“If you don’t recreate your memories then we might never get out of here. I think. I don’t know! Look, this is not how it’s meant to work, you’re meant to be reliving your greatest hits, I’m meant to be watching and making sure everything goes smoothly, then I’m meant to drop you off at the doorstep and wave goodbye. So, do you want me to ask you out or not?”  
“Not like that.” Frank huffed, crossing his arms despite his broken wrist. “That’s not how it happened.”  
Gerard rolled his eyes. “Then kiss me.”  
Frank kept his arms crossed and glared at Gerard. “I’m not going to kiss _you_.”  
“Why not? You don’t have to try too hard to imagine I’m him. Come on, Frankie.” Gerard tried his best to look innocent. “Why don’t you wanna kiss me?” He pouted.  
“Frankie.” Frank’s mum was back over. “Come on, they’re going take you through right away.”  
Frank stood up and followed his mum, so Gerard did too. They took him to a bed and gave him some strong pain killers while they organised for an x-ray to be taken. Gerard wasn’t sure how long they had before the memory would be altered and he didn’t want to find out what would happen if that was the case. Lucky for Gerard though, the pain meds were seemingly starting to kick in and Frank, who either was still affected by them or didn’t care that Gerard wasn’t actually his boyfriend, was reaching out for his hand. Gerard took it.  
“Oh, Frankie, I told you to not be so silly with those dangerous skateboards.” Frank’s Mum sighed. “Thank you for being here.” She then directed to Gerard. “I know how much you mean to Frankie.” She said sincerely.  
“Thank you for being here, baby.” Frank mumbled, using his grip on Gerard’s hand to pull him down and finally try to kiss him before he realised what he was doing.  
Frank’s mum cleared her through quietly. “I’ll just, are you hungry? I’ll find us something to eat, give you two some space.” She smiled sweetly and was out of the room.  
“Frankie, you gonna kiss me now, or what?” Gerard brushed his nose against Frank’s with a smile.  
“You gonna ask me to be your boyfriend now, or what?” Frank replied, finally pressing their lips together.  
Although Gerard could access The Other, he couldn’t access his own memories. He gathered he had followed his own thread when he had died but he couldn’t remember that now and it had been so long since he had kissed anyone. Frank’s lips were soft and gentle, his teeth shifting to bite down on Gerard’s bottom lip briefly before their tongues were brushing up against one another in Gerard’s mouth. Frank was a great kisser. No, more than great, he was perfect. Gerard almost didn’t want to pull away, and wouldn’t have if Gerard’s ears weren’t slowly filled with a muffled generic EDM beat and Gerard realised they were both standing in the middle of a club making out.  
“What now?” Gerard asked, looking around for Frank to explain.  
Frank also looked around the club, piecing it together. “Oh, he’s gonna kill me.” He smirked.  
“Who? Frank, why can’t I fucking see properly?”  
Frank grabbed Gerard’s hand. “Because you were fucking drunk.”  
The street outside was cold and empty, as if they were the only two people left in it. Gerard wondered if that’s how Frank felt when he was with his boyfriend – them against the world.  
“So, what’s so special about tonight?” Gerard didn’t know where they were walking to but followed beside Frank, nonetheless.  
“Nothing, really.” Frank shrugged. “We went out, for his brother’s birthday, you - _he_ \- got way too wasted, so I had to ditch the party to take you home.”  
“Wow. Must have been a shit party if you’re favourite memory is leaving it.” He teased.  
“I got to spend the night with him, take him home. He told me that he loved me. Way better than any party could have ever been.”  
Gerard felt a pang of guilt wash through him. “You must really miss him. I’m sorry I’m here instead of him. I mean, it’s not right, having to relive all this, except it's only half.”  
“We can pretend?” Frank asked gently. “When I look at you, I see him.”  
Frank was on top of Gerard then, falling back onto a bed, the sheets all tangled in both their legs. Their lips crashed against each other’s as hands frantically grabbed and pulled anywhere they could.  
“Frank, Frankie.” Gerard pulled back to breathe. “I’m sure he loved you, so, so much.”  
“Shut up.” Frank breathed back, joining their lips again. “Shut up for a moment.”  
He kissed Frank back, as hard as he could, tried to show him how much he knew he would have been loved. Frank deserved it. Kissed him like he had seen so many times in those big blockbuster movies, where the boy always got the girl and they lived happily ever after. He kissed him so deeply until eventually, it stopped.  
Gerard pulled away, looking down at Frank who had curled himself up into a ball on the bed and was sobbing into himself. “Frankie? Hey, what’s wrong?” He brushed Frank’s hair out of his face and with his fingers wiped his cheeks. “I’m sorry, I thought-“  
“It’s not, no, it’s fine.” Frank sniffled. “It’s not fair. I thought it was fair but it’s not. If you’re not him.”  
Gerard wished he was _him_ ; wanted to be the one who made Frank happy, kiss him whenever he liked, hold him and tell him he loved him. “Maybe I can talk to Death. When we get to the end. You know, I have to go back down there and help the next person across. I could take you with me, to visit him.”  
Frank shook his head. “No.”  
“I mean, it’ll only be for a moment, but you could say goodbye?”  
“No.” Frank shook his head again. “You don’t understand.”  
“Then help me.” Gerard tried to wipe more tears from Frank’s cheek but he pushed his hand away.  
“I can’t say goodbye because he’s already dead!” Frank was sobbing again. “He’s dead and it’s all my fault. And I didn’t get to say goodbye then, and I won’t now and I never will.”  
“Wh-what do you mean?”  
“He’s fucking dead!” Frank was hysterical.  
“What do you mean it’s all your fault?” Gerard stopped crowding over Frank. “Frank? What do you mean?”  
“I could have saved him but I didn’t. And then it was too late and now I’m going to Hell and I’ll never get to see him again. This was my last chance and it’s not even fucking _real_.” Frank pushed away from Gerard even further. “He told me he was hurting, that things weren’t okay, that he couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t think he meant it. I didn’t think he could ever do that to me. But then he was gone and it was too fucking late.”  
Gerard scooped Frank up and pulled him into his chest. He held onto him so tightly that even though Frank was fighting to get away, he couldn’t. “Frank, that is _not_ your fault. Sometimes people aren’t made for that world, they’re made with hearts too fragile, minds too open, that the normal world is too weak for them. They’re made for something else.”  
“He was made for _me_.” Frank cried, fingers digging into Gerard’s bicep where he was holding on. “He was made for me, and I couldn’t even put him back together again.”  
“Listen to me.” Gerard looked into Frank’s teary eyes. “Listen to me, you are worth so much more than you think. This isn’t the end. You haven’t even lived half your life, how could you know there isn’t anything else?”  
“What, what is this?” Frank and Gerard both looked around to who was speaking – a lady sitting on a grey fabric chair with a notepad in her hand. “This isn’t my memory?”  
“What about Frank? Hmm? I know how much he means to you.”  
Gerard could feel his mouth moving like he couldn’t stop it if he tried. “Frank deserves better. He deserves someone who doesn’t feel like this, I can’t imagine loving someone who felt like this.”  
“Would you love Frank? Would you love Frank if he was hurting like you are?” This lady was obviously a therapist, and Frank and Gerard had obviously somehow made their way into one of Frank’s boyfriend’s memories. But how?  
“Of course, I would.” Gerard was glad that was the response; how could anyone ever not love Frank? “I would love Frank no matter what.”  
“Then if you can’t do it for yourself, you have to do it for Frank.”  
Gerard felt the memory disappearing around them as if they were sinking through the floor. Eventually, their surroundings morphed into a comic book store, with endless rows of comics that stretched so far Gerard couldn’t see where they began or ended.  
“What the _fuck_ was that?” Frank demanded, spinning Gerard around to face him. “Why would you fucking show me that!?”  
“I – I didn’t.” He looked down at the book he was holding. “I can’t do that, that’s not something I _do_.” Gerard flipped through the comic, only the inside was filled with lined paper, like an exercise book from when he was in grade school. There were notes in it that Gerard knew were private, notes about Frank, notes _to_ Frank.  
“What are you doing?” Frank snapped when Gerard pushed the book into his chest.  
“Look at it. Just read it.” Gerard watched Frank’s eyes skim over the pages, notes and notes all for him. “When you die, I mean after you’ve been through The Other, you can’t ever come back. You stay in The After. You hurt someone else, do something _bad _, like kill someone, you go to Hell. Whatever Hell means to you. You _don’t_ , you go to Heaven.”  
Frank was choking up reading through the words on the pages and shut the book.  
“But either way, you can’t ever come back to The Other again. No one can. Except for reapers. Reapers can go where ever they want, down there, The Other, The After.” Gerard shrugged. “And you can take things with you too. A soul, a gift, a _book_.”  
“I don’t understand.”  
“No, look.” Gerard was frustrated he couldn’t really explain it. “The only way you can become a reaper is to be dead, but not just – you can’t just _die_ , you have to…you have to have killed yourself.”  
“You mean?”  
Gerard nodded. “Your boyfriend, he’s a reaper that means. And I think he’s trying to talk to you. Through The Other.”  
“Well, why can’t he just – just come and see me?” Frank still had tears in his eyes. “Why doesn’t he want to come see me?”  
“You don’t get it.” Gerard sighed in frustration. “He can come to The Other, but you won’t be here. He’ll just see the empty Other. It’s like, it’s like being in another dimension. You can be in the same place, but The Other doesn’t work like that. Unless he’s the reaper guiding you, all he can do is leave things for you to find. The After though, if we keep on going, make it to The After, he could be able to. I don’t know, I mean, I visited my grandma once, so I think it should work.” Admittedly, Gerard was going to be sad to see Frank move on to The After, but maybe, even though he’d have his boyfriend back now, he’d like Gerard to come and visit sometime, too.  
“Okay.” Frank nodded. “Okay, let’s do it.” They started walking down the aisles, Frank still holding onto the book.  
“What did it say?” Gerard asked, respectfully, but curious - taking in their new surroundings.  
“Wait. You said – you’re a reaper, that means?” Frank toyed with his lip a little in an attempt to not have to say it. “You killed yourself, too?”__


	3. And the lamb ⸸

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for this chapter: suicide/death/overdose.

“So, if there’s a place I really wanna go, can I do that?” Frank had Gerard’s hand in his own, swinging it back and forth gently as they walked.  
“Yeah.” Gerard smiled; Frank seemed to be doing a bit better, maybe it was the fact that he knew he could have the chance to see his boyfriend again, or maybe they were nearing the end of the thread – Gerard wasn’t sure. “If the memory is strong enough. Besides, if it is though, it’s probably already one we are going to make it to at some stage.”  
“Do they have to be happy memories?”  
The reaper stopped and looked at Frank, he didn’t know why anyone would want to relive an unhappy memory. “Uh, I guess not? But, why? I mean sometimes people revisit funerals or like their best friend moving away, but there’s always at least something small happy in them.”  
“Okay.” Frank pushed them into a walk again until they reached a small bedroom. “Next question.” There were posters all over the walls of bands Gerard knew he would have liked, if he could remember the names. They sat down with controllers in their hands, a game of Mario Kart already midway. “Do you remember anything from when you were alive?”  
“I mean, not really.” It didn’t bother Gerard too much, he was far too busy for memories anyway. “Like, I know I had a family – my parents and a brother. My grandma too, she’s up there. And I did have a boyfriend, you would have got along with him, I’m sure.”  
Frank looked away, dejected, so Gerard put down the controller and turned Frank’s face towards him with his hand. “Why?”  
“It’s not fair. For you I mean.” Frank added. “Do you miss him?”  
Gerard anxiously chewed his lip. “I don’t remember…”  
“Well, you did like him, right?” Frank scoffed as if to accuse Gerard of fooling around. “Or you don’t remember that part either? Do you even remember what it’s like to like somebody? Or you just ferry people around and then forget they ever existed?”  
Gerard couldn’t keep up with Frank’s drastic mood swing and fought to defend himself. “Of course, I do. I –I like you.” He offered.  
Frank scoffed again. “You don’t even know who I am.”  
“Well, everything I do know, I like. And if your memories are anything to go by-” Gerard was cut off. By Frank’s lips.  
He forced himself on top of Gerard and was kissing him so passionately that Gerard almost forgot how to breathe. He sure forgot how to think.  
“I miss you. Why did you have to go?” Frank asked solemnly between kisses.  
Gerard let Frank picture and use him as his boyfriend, imagining he was talking to him now and pleading with him to have not left Frank behind. So, he kissed Frank back, held onto his waist by balling up his t-shirt and encouraged his legs to wrap around him while he was cross-legged on the floor. “Frank, Frank.” Gerard managed to breathe out. “I’m sorry –he’s sorry, no one’s trying to hurt you. I’m trying my best.” He blurted out, not bothered with what he was saying.  
Frank just kissed back harder, wrestling them both to lay on the floor, before straddling Gerard completely and looking down at him. His hands were pressed against Gerard’s chest, to steady himself and his hair was sticking up all over the place; it was charming to Gerard.  
“You’re so stupid.” Frank pushed, endearingly though. “It’s _you_.” He didn’t let Gerard respond before another kiss was pressed against his lips.  
Was this a memory? Or was Frank projecting his current emotional state? Either way, Gerard was enveloped by pure bliss. Frank’s lips felt so right against his, so soft yet rough at the same time, and his weight pressed against him was warm and comforting. He almost forgot about his current life – if that’s what one would call it – about The Other, The After, The _Before_. All that mattered right at this moment, was _this moment_ – Frank kissing him. Whether or not he was imagining Gerard as his boyfriend was irrelevant. He just wanted to stay in this memory for as long as Frank could.  
Above them, thunder rumbled gently. At first, it wasn’t much, but it eventually grew so loud it brought a few stray lightning strikes into the room.  
Gerard pushed back. “Frankie, we have to go.”  
“What, why?” Frank pleaded.  
“It’s storming. Inside.”  
“So?”  
“We can get struck by lightning here.” Gerard pulled Frank by his hand towards the TV; while these weren’t his memories, he did know a few shortcuts around The Other.  
He stepped into the TV, the static melting around them and swallowing them in. It was no more than a mere few seconds and they reappeared outside of the TV into a corridor of a house.  
Frank squeezed Gerard’s hand in the silence; the thunder and lightning had stopped and there was an eeriness about this memory. There was a door to their left that seemed to lead down towards a basement, and on the walls were family photographs, Gerard was too preoccupied with the way Frank was holding his hand to notice them.  
“Why did you bring me here?” Frank managed, eyes prickling a little.  
“Come on, Frankie. We have to keep going, we must nearly be there.”  
“I really don’t wanna go down there. Why would you bring me here?” He was becoming increasingly more distressed.  
Was this not Frank’s memory again? His boyfriends? A nightmare? “Frank, what memory is this? Do you remember?” Gerard asked as calmly as he could, while the edges of The Other began to blur – something was going on and Gerard wasn’t sure what.  
“Please don’t make me go in there.” Frank all but begged, pulling Gerard’s arm down while he tried to walk towards the door.  
With a hand on the doorknob, Gerard turned back to face Frank. “It’s okay, Frankie. I’m here.”  
Pushing open the door was like throwing Frank full throttle into the memory, he let go of Gerard’s hand and jumped down the stairs two at a time, a new smile plastered on his face. “Gee?” Gerard followed. “Are you feeling better? I missed you at school today.”  
The room was way too dark to see much, but Gerard guessed it had been converted into a bedroom. There was a lot of mess everywhere, and the only tiny window in the whole room was letting in the smallest slither of afternoon light.  
“Hey, are you asleep?” Frank tread quietly, resting a hand on the body covered up in the bed. “Baby? I brought _Dawn of the Dead_ maybe you wanna smoke and watch it together?”  
Gerard stood there awkwardly while Frank wasn’t responded to. Was he going to leave? Try to wake him up?  
Frank shook his hand a little firmly, taking the latter option. “Come on, it’s 5 pm, wake up.” He laughed affectionately.  
He tried again, but still nothing. Reaching over to turn on the bedside lamp, Frank then shook who Gerard guessed was his boyfriend a little more violently. There was a rattle and a small white bottle fell to the floor. With a quizzical look on his face, Frank bent down and picked up. Gerard felt sick to his stomach.  
“What?” Frank asked quietly into The Other. “Gerard?”  
Gerard stepped closer to tell Frank he couldn’t help him, but with the new light from the lamp and Frank re-shaking the body he was now able to see more clearly. He was staring down right at himself.  
“Gerard!? What? Nonononono.” Frank was sobbing, pulling the blankets back completely and trying to sit Gerard up.  
Gerard wanted to vomit. He was watching Frank trying to give himself CPR only it couldn’t have been himself, this was meant to be Frank’s boyfriend, so why was Gerard looking at himself?  
“Gerard, wake up.” Frank cried, fingers in Gerard’s mouth now to try and make him spit the pills back up. “Help! Somebody, help me! Gerard, don’t leave me, don’t. Help!!”  
Was Frank talking to the real Gerard or the dead Gerard? Gerard wasn’t sure; he had to leave regardless, he was going to be sick. He rushed back up the stairs, pushed out the door and was flooded with daylight – into a wheat field and he immediately bent over to throw up.  
“Gee?”  
Gerard spun around. “Wh—wha, did you know?”  
“What?” Frank tried to reach out.  
“Did. You. Know?” Gerard repeated again.  
Frank’s silence answered Gerard’s question.  
“I’m going crazy, aren’t I? What the fuck is going on? No, you’re making this up. Why would you fucking do that? You’re sick.” Gerard pointed a finger accusingly at Frank. “I tried to help you, and you—you fucking, how could you?”  
“Gerard.” Frank stopped him.  
Had Gerard ever even told Frank his name? His mind was reeling, unable to comprehend what was really going on. Was _he_ in The Other? Were these his memories? Was _Frank_ the reaper? “Tell me what the fuck is going on.” He demanded.  
“I don’t know.” Frank said sincerely. “You’re – it’s like – fuck. I thought I was seeing you as him because my memories were all fucked up. I thought you were walking around in his body trying to help me through this shit. But then, when you gave me that book, the one in the comic shop, it had drawings you had done, of me, of us. And you were _you_ but as a reaper. I think you were trying to tell me.”  
Gerard shook his head. “No. I’m –I’m dead, I’ve _been_ dead for as long as I can remember.”  
“You said that I’m meant to be living through all my greatest hits, right? Well, they all fucking revolve around you, around Gerard. But you’re you so how could that be? You’d be standing there watching me and you like some fucked up movie, so it’s like all this is getting mixed up and you’re reliving them with me. Because it is _you_.”  
Gerard had a pounding headache. It didn’t make any sense but it made complete sense at the same time. “So, you’re trying to tell me, I’m your boyfriend, your boyfriend who killed himself, became a reaper and has been for years while waiting for you to die in a freak accident and now I’m the reaper that’s fucking transporting you to The After?”  
“Well, yeah. Although, it hasn’t been years. It’s been one.”  
“See, can’t be. I’ve been here for so long, way too long, longer than a year.” Gerard reasoned.  
More thunder rumbled overhead.  
“You said so yourself logic doesn’t really work around here. It’s like when you’re dreaming and you feel as if you’ve been gone for hours but it’s really just been minutes.”  
Gerard shut his eyes and hoped that when he reopened them everything would be gone. But to his dismay, it wasn’t. “Frankie, I don’t remember.” He began to cry. “Why don’t I remember? That was me. I was looking at myself, and you were trying to save me.”  
Frank scoffed a little, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his jumper. “Because I fucking love you. You meant everything to me. Why? Why did you have to do that?”  
Gerard tried to remember, tried to remember how horrible his Before had been, what had driven him to that point. But it was as if there was nothing but a black hole inside of him, eating him up. He guessed that described it perfectly. “Frankie, it wasn’t you. Okay? I promise it wasn’t because of you.”  
Frank wiped his nose again and sniffled. “You don’t know that, you said yourself, you can’t remember.”  
Gerard stepped forward and pulled Frank into him, which finally gave Frank the comfort to break down into proper tears. “Then let’s find out. We don’t have to leave here yet. We can try. That memory, the one in therapy, that wasn’t yours, was it?” Frank shook his head into Gerard's neck. “Which means it was mine. We can find my memories. I just have to figure out how.” A single piece of lightning erupted as Frank pulled back, and Gerard pressed a gentle kiss to his tear-stained lips. “I promise, Frankie. It wasn’t because of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the lovely two comments and the kudos! They are very sweet. This story was originally going to be 3 chapters long, but I've extended it slightly.


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